Qassem Soleimani and the Bastardful History of U.S. / Iran Relations

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the introduction of the podcast Behind the Bastards
by Robert Evans. I've forgotten and anything that I ever
knew about how to introduce podcasts, and over the next
couple of weeks, as with the last couple of weeks,
I'm going to kareem through a variety of different styles,
none of which are good ways to start a podcast.
And that's where we are right now at the start

(00:23):
of this episode, Behind the Bastards, the show about terrible people,
with Robert Evans a terrible person. My guest today is
Anna Hasnia, host co host of the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast
podcast producer here at iHeart Radio and Liquor Baron. What

(00:43):
Liquor Baron like like like you? I am? I imagine
if it were the Rolling twenties, you would be one
of the people who would be like smuggling liquor in
bowling balls to speak, easies. I'm sorry who booked me
on this show. I really need to talk to my agents.
Just joking. I don't know what you're talking about, and

(01:05):
I will not comment further. I don't know where you
got this information, but I made it quite clear I
did not want it out there. I don't know. How
are you doing this week? I'm good? How are you?
I mean, I'm not good, like I'm alive, not great. Uh.
We we've had some fun news this week vis a
vis the United States, UH and Iran. UM not been

(01:29):
a high point in our in these two countries international relations.
I think would be safe to say no, I don't
think we've been doing well at all. Um. And of course, uh,
most of that has to do I mean most of
that right now at least has to do with the
fact that on Friday, January third, twenty, Iranian General Kassam

(01:51):
Sulimani was assassinated via missile by the United States as
motorcade rolled out from the Baghdad airport. Stories that came
out in the wake of the attack revealed that he
had been on his way to an official meeting with
the Prime Minister of Iraq. So UM shot to call yeah, um,

(02:14):
not a great move necessarily if you care about iraqs
sovereign rights as a nation, UM or a or anyone. Yeah,
yeah um A move with some some complications and consequences,

(02:34):
most of which we don't know yet. UM. So I
don't I'm not going to really speculate on them. Um,
we're gonna talk about like the the assassination itself much
or the fallout from it much. UM. Instead, I thought
something productive to do would be to really dig into
Mr Sulimani's life, um and and try to like figure
out who he was as a person. UM. Yeah, I

(02:57):
kind of think in terms of like what I do,
that's the one place I can make a difference. UM.
One of the things I saw online that was really
frustrated to me. In the immediate wake of the attack, UM,
CNBC published an article declaring the newly dead general the
world's biggest bad guy, um, which correct quite a take.
And then they later revealed that that column was an

(03:20):
op ed that they hadn't labeled it as such originally,
which is great. Uh, just like the Washington Post had
a column being like this, actually, killing Suleimany opens up
some like new avenues for diplomacy for the United States,
And it then turned out that the guy who wrote
it worked for Raytheon, the company that designed the guidance
systems for the missiles that killed Sulamani. Guys, it's really

(03:40):
great for us, like we can sell a lot of
weapons for this upcoming doom war. We're like kind of
heading towards so hey, stop looking at it in such
a negative light. Yeah, it's uh. You know, if he'd
framed it as this is going to be great for
selling weapons, I would say, totally honest column. The fact
that it was framed in terms of diplomacy where I
start to have an issue. Um. But it wasn't just

(04:03):
sort of the right wing and centrist media that had
unbelievably bad takes about Sulimani and his career. On the
left wing, people started spinning yards about Cossum's legacy uh
and portraying him as an anti imperialist fighter. On Twitter,
people like Ranya Kalek and Ben Norton with the Gray
Zones started claiming that the Iranian general had defeated ISIS

(04:23):
and Iraq uh in Tens of thousands of folks on
the left retweeted and shared variations of this take. And
one thing I think we can be sure of is
that about of the people on the left and the
right in the middle who have come out with takes
on Cossum Sulimani in the last week or so had
not heard his name prior to his assassination UM, and
could not have identified a picture of him. Um, I'm

(04:47):
not an expert on the guy. I can say I've
known about him for a little over four years, since
I started studying and traveling to Iraq. He's kind of
impossible to miss if you go to that part of
the world. A lot of people in Iraq joked that
he was the Prime Minister of Iraq like that was
a common joke, particularly in the South. Um. But the
fact that I've known who this guy was for four
years puts me in the same basket as the man

(05:08):
who ordered his assassination our president. In two thousand fifteen,
then candidate Donald J. Trump appeared on the talk show
of right wing radio icon Hugh Hewitt, who asked him,
are you familiar with General Suleimanny. Trump replied yes, and
then made it clear that this was a lie by saying,
go ahead, give me a little you know, tell me so.

(05:29):
Hewitt went on to explain to the future president that
Sulimany ran Iran's famous KOD's Force, which is essentially kind
of like the CIA, mixed in with the Green Berets
a little bit. Um, and Trump clearly had no idea
what the Kods Force was because His immediate response was,
I think the Kurds, by the way, have been horribly
mistreated by US. So he clearly heard Kurds instead of

(05:50):
Kods force and Hugh Hewitt had to correct him on that.
So that's that That's where Trump's level of knowledge of
this guy was four years for ordering his assassination, which
is fun which is like, yeah, no, toads love that guy.
Great guy, He's great. I honestly I've never heard anything negative, wonderful.

(06:11):
It would have been funny if Hugh Hugh Wit hadn't
have been a right wing hill, if he had just
kept running and like seeing how much he could get
Trump to say about General Sulimani in context of like
thinking he was occurred like you could have gotten thirty
minutes of fun radio out of that question. Did he
correct him? Was he like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, and

(06:32):
it was Trump said, oh I thought you said curts.
Of course, well, I guess also not to be that
person who defends Trump in anyway. But if you don't
know like Iranian Revolutionary Guard and you don't know the
shirt go by q U d S, could it's I
guess it's wouldn't I mean, if you just have no

(06:53):
understanding of like Middle Eastern anything. You would never make
that connection. For for for a normal person, that's a
perfectly fine mistake to make. I would say, I think
of the people who run for president, especially who are
running through President two thousand and sixteen, should know who
cost him. Sulimani like, yes, um, yeah he was. He

(07:17):
was a big guy, and the story we're gonna tell
today is the story of how he became a very
very big dude. Um. And one of the things that's like,
you know, when when you're talking about like actors at
this level on the national stage who are responsible for
horrible things and for good things, um, you don't often

(07:38):
run across some people who are as competent as this
guy was. Um. Or at least that's the prevailing theory.
There's a couple of different theories that maybe like yeah,
well we'll we'll get into that a little bit. But
um he's an interesting dude. He's like a character from
um uh, like like a like a Cold war spy novel.
He's like like like that level of like um uh,

(08:01):
like genius at school duggery. He's very good at what
he did, and so he's an entertaining guy to read about. Um,
if you can kind of put yourself in the head
of like reading it as a story and not reading
it as like a tale of history where actual human
lives were affected. But it's interesting as hell, and I
really recommend um. There's one particularly good article about this

(08:21):
guy that we'll get to in a bit. But he's
he's he's worth reading about, and you'll understand more about
what's going on if you do. Yeah, he's started from
the bottom. Now we are here type yes, yes, uh.
And I won't quote the rest of that song because
there's a bad word in it. Uh. This is this
is a clean shows a clean sew now no, but

(08:44):
not that one. Um. So yeah. I one of the
things I did when I was doing my research on
Sulimani is I made sure to avoid I tried to
avoid as much as possible using sources that were written
after the assassination, because everybody writing anything after the assassination,
at LEAs right now. I assume new Ship will come
out at some point, but everyone right now is just
rewriting the couple of good articles there were about this

(09:06):
guy before he was killed. Um, and getting stuff wrong
in the translation. So I avoided that for the most part,
and I would caution people to be very hesitant to
trust much that you hear about this dude in the
next couple of months, maybe years, because it's going to
take a while for us to get much more good
information out on him. He's a very politicized figure. I

(09:26):
also recommend reading, uh, what Middle Eastern writers are writing
during this time. Although one of the things, like some
of the Middle Eastern writers I found writing on this
guy right for places like the American Enterprise Institute UM
so like, which is like a right wing thing tank.
It's like a neo conservative think tank. In the article

(09:47):
on him there isn't terrible, but like everything you find
on this guy is very political UM, which is like, so, yeah,
do your do your best to find a variety of
sources and avoid anything new if you're going to do
your own research on this UM is my recommendation, so Um.
Kassam Sulimani was born on March eleventh, nineteen fifty seven,

(10:09):
seven not fifty seven, in the village of Rabbar raybar
r A b o r Uh in Kerman Province, Iran.
His father was a farmer and when Kossum was small,
his dad took out an agricultural loan from the government
of the Shah, Mohammed Reza Palavi. Now the Shaw, born
in nineteen nineteen, had come to power in nineteen forty

(10:29):
one after his father, the previous Shaw, had refused to
support the Allies during World War Two. In the early
nineteen fifties, before Cossum was born, the Shah fought a
brutal power struggle with his Prime minister. Palavi, was briefly
ousted and returned to power only with the express backing
of the United States and Great Britain. I'm I'm leaving
out a lot of detail because that's a paragraph there,

(10:49):
but I think we're hitting the highlights. Um. Now, upon
his return, the Shaw established what many would consider a
brutal and repressive police state with the help of his
secret police, the savak Uh. The show treated the entire
nation as basically his bank account, or an extension of
his bank account, and by the time Kasum would have
been a young boy, the problem was so bad that

(11:09):
even British observers were shocked by the level of corruption
within the Iranian government. Here's a selection I picked almost
at random from the nineteen seventy six New York Times
article talking about the Shah's government quote to under secretaries
the handsome Hussain Alzetta and the scholarly doctor Mohammed Ali
Serifa or Serafi have been dismissed for alleged sugar purchasing

(11:30):
irregularities which are said to have involve the Iranian government
and unneeded expenditures of forty five million. To underscore the point,
Tehran newspapers, which are indirectly controlled by the regime, have
piously pointed out that this money could have been used
to build thirty thousand country schools or three thousand hospitals. So, like,
that's the kind of shady deed dealings that are like
daily news. Um when the Shah is in power and

(11:53):
the United States has involved in quite a lot of this. Grumman,
which at that time was a long island aerospace concern,
it is now Northrop Grumman, which is like a major
part of our like uh security industry, like security industrial complex.
I guess you say, um Like they did a bunch
of like shady bribes to middleman in Iran in order

(12:13):
to get the Iranian government to like buy a bunch
of airplane parts and stuff from them that were necessarily like,
actually useful. Um And so Grumman was basically funneling corporate
money into the hands of individual members of the Shah's
government so that they would spend huge amounts of defense
money on ship they didn't need, which would be profits
for Grumman. Um. And all of the money that was

(12:34):
spent on this was of course money that normal Iranian
people like Cossum's dad paid to the Shah's government in taxes. Um. So,
Cossum grew up as an into an adolescent watching his
father play crippling taxes and interest on a loan to
a central government that basically stole money from its people
for their own personal enrichment. Um Now, when his father's

(12:55):
agricultural Iranian can't comment further, Hey, you do what you
gotta do, you know, yeah. Um So, when his father's
agriculture alone came to the Shah's government offered no forgiveness
or respite costumes, father wind up owing the equivalent of
about a hundred U S dollars, which was enough debt

(13:15):
to have rendered his family destitute at that point in time. So,
at age thirteen, Cossum and his cousin ah Mad had
to leave home without their parents knowing, in order to
go work in the city of Kerman. He later recalled,
at night, we couldn't fall asleep with the sadness of
thinking that government agents were coming to arrest our fathers.
We were only thirteen and our bodies were so tiny.
Wherever we went, they wouldn't hire us until one day

(13:36):
when we were hired as laborers at a school construction
site on Kaju Street, which is where the city ended.
That paid his two tom nd per day, which is
the currency at the time, I guess. So it took
eight months for the boys to save up enough money
to make a meaningful dent in their father's debts. Uh
And unfortunately, by the time they had saved up enough money,
it was late enough in the year that the mountain
passes back home were covered in thick snow. The boys

(13:57):
had to find a local man with a car I
named Palavan Uh and he drove them back. And according
to Sulimani's later recollections, this guy really hated the shaw
and he was the first person to express seditious political
views to the young cossum. Poulavan was particularly furious that
small children have would have to work full time to
pay off a relative's debt to the already wealthy. Shaw Uh,

(14:19):
this is the time for them to rest in play
and not work as a laborer and a strange city.
I spit on the life they have made for us.
Cosumercalled this guy saying, Um, so this is like clearly
an important moment in his young life, and it makes
his like his personal memoirs um. And again it's hard
to say how true that all is, because again he's
a very politicized figure. These are the memoires he came

(14:40):
out with, and you get the hint with some of
them that he's trying to sort of like inculcate some
values that he wants to spread in the populace. Um.
But most of what we know about costums early life
came from either a book that he wrote or that
might have been ghost written about his life. Um. And
then you know a few interviewers who have kind of
like around folks in that region, some historians and stuff,

(15:02):
but there's there's not a huge amount out there. Um.
The experts who have analyzed Cossum's early life outside of
his own book do agree that he grew up very poor,
and he would have been working heavily from a young age.
The story about his father's debt meanten that he had
he and a cousin had to go to the city
to work it off. That's almost certainly true. Um. We
know Cossum got no more than a high school education.

(15:24):
He's been about five years in school maybe, um. And
by the time he was a young adult, he'd managed
to get himself a job working for the water department
in the city of Kerman. Now, by this point it
was the nineteen seventies and the twilight of the Shah's
period of control. Revolutionary fervor had gripped many sections of
Iranian society. Various movements rose up to question the royal
grip on power. Cossum meanwhile, dedicated himself to getting swollen

(15:48):
as hell. Uh. He became a dedicated weightlifter and began
socializing with a group of equally swollen and equally frustrated
young men. Um. So he's not a revolutionary initially, he's
a He's a gym rat. Comes into his like late teens,
early twenties. Right. Based on my understand he wasn't very
religious either. I think Um, yeah, he grew up kind

(16:08):
of not necessarily secular, but it wasn't the most present
in his childhood growing up. No, And I you don't
get the feeling. You hear different things about this guy.
Some who will say he was extremely pious, a lot
of folks who like knew him and talked. You get
the feeling kind of openly about it. It wasn't a

(16:30):
big deal to him. Like I do think it would
be accurate to say his religion was the Iranian state
and like the revolution as he saw it. Like, I
think he was that kind of dude as opposed to
like being super pious, but he was. He was Funny.
You say he's pious because he was a pisces, which
means he's very kind of has some intensity, and but

(16:53):
he's adapted, so he you know, he adapts to his situation.
And you know, when you're trying to to fight to
what payoff loan for your father or just trying to
survive when you're poor, and you just adapt to your
environment and do what you need to do to get by,
and if that is joining U army, you do what
you can. Yeah, he's adaptive, so he as as a

(17:18):
young man he Um. Yeah, he starts getting swollen hell
um and that that's mostly his social group for a
little while. And Uh, he does start attending a series
of sermons by a traveling preacher who worked with one
of the future Ayatolas. And this is where Kasum first
became seduced by the idea of Iran without its shaw Um.

(17:38):
So he's not again, he's not a part of the
There is like a revolutionary movement. There's like a revolutionary
leftist movement in Iran and a revolutionary like Islamist movement. Um.
And obviously the Islamist movement is the one that actually
like overthrow, succeeds in overthrowing the Shah. Um. But he's
not really a part of any of that. Like he's
entranced by some of the speeches of some of these

(18:00):
guys who are pro that, but he never really gets involved. Um.
And so in nineteen seventy nine, uh Ayatola Ruhola Komeni
overthrows the Shah's government. Uh. And it Claire's an Islamic
republic in Iran or a bunch of people backing Uh
the Ayatola I should say he didn't he didn't do
it on his own UM. Now, one of the new
Ayatola's first orders of business was to secure this new

(18:23):
regime from being overthrown, particularly by elements in the military
who might still have been loyal to the Shaw or
at least who weren't necessarily loyal to the Ayatola. And
to this end he established the Revolutionary Guard, which is
essentially was essentially a separate branch of the military that
was loyal directly to the clerics who now ran the country.
UM and young Kassam left his gig at the Water

(18:45):
department to join the Revolutionary Guard. He found himself like
called to get involved with this new thing. And this
is a smart move. You see this a lot in
history when you have revolutions, most of them will set
up a military like side structure. Like if they don't
outright just destroy the military, the military stays intact, but
nobody really trusted. You see this with like a lot

(19:06):
of revolution see revolutionary governments. You don't see it like
the Soviet Union so much because they did kind of
destroy everything that it existed before UM, but you see
it in a lot of revolutionary movements where like they'll
have to set up a side sort of security structure
outside of what had existed before, because they can't do
away with that entirely, but they don't trust it. And

(19:26):
when you have this new kind of thing, like the
Revolutionary Guard was, you have an opportunity for like a
young man with no history to make a big name
for himself because like the military or like the intelligence
agencies like those are like really ossified, strict structures. Were like,
you know, there's a certain way they do things, and
they tend to hire from certain groups of the population,

(19:49):
and if you don't know anybody, you're probably not going
to get much of a shot there. Um, whereas the
Revolutionary Guard, nothing's written. And so this guy, this poor
kid from carmen Um can join it any as a
chance to actually like build a career for himself, and
he immediately distinguishes himself as very intelligent, um, very ambitious,
and he starts to rise within the Revolutionary Guards by

(20:12):
the time he's because he's extremely loyal, because he's a Pisces. Yes,
that's exactly what he credited to as well. Yeah, big
big zodiac guy. I remember that about him. So by
the time Suleiman, he's twenty three years old, he'd earned
himself enough trust that he was sent with a group

(20:33):
of guardsmen to suppress pretty brutally a Kurdish uprising in
West azer Baijan in a place called Mahabad. Now in
the late nineteen forties, Mahabad had been the site of
a short lived Kurdish Socialist Republic which had fought for
its independence briefly, but was abandoned by the U s
SR it's only hope of survival and then eaten up
and destroyed. UH. In the wake of the Shah's overthrow,

(20:55):
Mahabad's Curds had decided to basically give independence another go.
If you know anything about Kurdish history, this happens all
the time, UH, and it never works out, so UM,
and it did not work out this time. UM. We
don't know much specifically about Sulimani's individual actions to crush
this uprising. UH. It's not part of his backstory that's
often emphasized, particularly since he wound up dealing very frequently

(21:18):
with Kurds in Iraq and in Syria on a diplomatic
basis over the course of his career. So it wasn't
a great thing to go into detail about. UM. But
this action against the Mahabad uprising by the Revolutionary Guard UM.
It was really like the first big action taken by
the Revolutionary Guard UM. And participating in the Mahabad rebellion

(21:38):
UM becomes seen as like if you do that, like
that's kind of what makes you UM like marks you
out is like a big name and o g in
the Revolutionary Guard Corps. You were a part of this
this like force that was deployed to Mahabad, and it
sets you up for success and for promotion and stuff
within the organization. UM. And so because he's there at

(21:59):
this time, like it puts him in a really good
position for what comes next. Uh you know what's you
know what's going to come next? Domination? Well, kind of
the opposite actually a crippling and unbelievably destructive invasion by Iraq.
Oh that old, that little old thing. You know. It's interesting.

(22:20):
My father fought in the Uran Iraq hoarn. So did
my mother. Well, she didn't fight. I think she was
more unlike whatever, the women do not fight. Yeah, based
on my understanding, she said she played a drum, which
I think she's lying. But that's casual Persian parent thing.
They'll never tell you the truth. But anyway. I mean,
aren't you know that I'm mistaken. There's some stories of
like people like women who would like run with explosives

(22:42):
under Iraqi tanks and blow them up and themselves up
and stuff like. It was a pretty desperate war, especially
in the early stages. Um. Yeah, I believe my father
rode horses. That was his thing. He I don't. He
just told me. He's not so very forthcoming about his
war days. I mean, it's we don't it's not very

(23:05):
much known in the West, but it's like one of
the worst things that happened in the latter half of
the twentieth century. Like, there's a lot of bad wars
in the latter half of the twentieth century, but that one,
that one's up there, um and it was um. It
would prove to be like um a foundational moment, obviously

(23:25):
for the modern nation of Iran, um, but also for
Kasum Um. So for a little bit of a background
on this war. In nineteen eighties, Saddam Hussein, you might
know him for his romance novels. He also was the dictator. Yeah. Uh.
Saddam Hussein launched an invasion of Iran. His goal seems

(23:47):
to have been to take advantage of political chaos in
the country following the revolution to make a quick, quick
grab for land and power. UM. Now, there are rumors
that you'll hear to this day that Saddam invaded with
a green light from the United States, And there's actual
very little hard evidence for this. Most of what we
have suggests the Carter administration was too busy dealing with
the Iranian hostage crisis, UM, and they were actually really

(24:08):
unhappy that Saddam invaded, and complicated matters from internal Iraqi documents,
we know Saddam expected the US to impose the invasion.
We'll talk about the fun, funked up ship the United
States did here shortly. UM. But what's important is that
Saddam Hussein launches this fucking invasion of Iran thinking it's
going to be easy. It's kind of the same reasoning

(24:29):
you see with UM with like Hitler in UM Operation Barbar.
Also when he invades Russia, where there's just been this revolution,
everything is unsettled, the old order has been torn down
in a place with a new one, and this neighbor
who's belligerent is like, oh, it'll be really easy to
kick their asses UM, And it works out kind of
the same. It works out similarly to that one. Um, yeah,

(24:56):
Iran doesn't turn out to be a pushover. The war
would company known and I think this, Yeah, the sacred
defense is the term used. Sacred defense. Do you have
a translation for that? Um? I don't have it in Farsi.
The two terms I've heard for it is the sacred
defense and the imposed Warum. I'll have to look into

(25:16):
that a little. I'm curious what it is. What did
you what did you grow up being told about it?
I wasn't told much. I a thing that goes on
and sort of, um, maybe it's just I don't want
to say, just blatantly immigrant families. But something I noticed
in my Persian family is that certain darker aspects aren't

(25:37):
spoken about, and you're kind of, um like guarded from
those things. So you're not really told about such things.
Like when I was told about the shaw like they
were like he was this lavish, you know king who
always wore like it was always like beautiful imagery of
like a man who was covered in gold basically, and um,

(25:58):
you know, later as I grew up and I started
him like always he was a deeply corrupt man who
you know, I had a father who basically ruined him,
so he was never really able to stand up for
himself and be zone. It's like all this stuff of
layers and layers of layers, but like my parents would
have never told me any of that, you know, Like
I always had like a very base understanding until I
went and did my own research and was like, oh,

(26:18):
I remember my father gave me the book All the
Shah's Men, and I was like, oh my god, this
is not how I expected it to be. Like wait
a second, like what happened here? And you know, they
just kind of they like to sugarcoat it because they're
trying to protect you from I guess internalized genetic trauma,
which you're like, what are you gonna do? There's an

(26:41):
extent to which that kind of sounds like my upbringing,
like just in terms of like you know, you hear
like Thomas Jefferson was this great scholar of liberty and
this great like this this this great thinker and like
the nature of like human freedom, and it's like, oh,
he also raped a slave for decades like you know, yeah,

(27:01):
I mean, but basically, my whole understanding of the Iran
Iraq war was that my parents were in it because
of the two year draft, which is still in place
in Iran. They were like, hey, we went and did it,
but now we're in America and we are looking forward.
And that is about all I understood. And I just
saw photos of my parents like in their like ear
like out doing things like my dad on a horse

(27:25):
or eating. You know what doesn't have a two year
draft on a you know what, won't draft your parents
for two years to fight in a war against Iraq?
What the products and services that support this show? Hell yeah,
they have no legal power to do. So that's what
I would hope for. There's some bills were putting up
in the House that will hopefully that will hopefully give

(27:48):
our our supporters the right to draft US citizens. I am.
I am a very supportive of that. I said, we
cut out the middleman, get rid of that state. Just
let advertisers directly compel people in the military service. I'm sorry,
I have one quick question before we go to break
what was the draft ages when the original draft in
the US was on geez, I think it was, I

(28:11):
mean what it might have been seventeen when he started
eighteen and then it went to how old, like when
did they cap it? I believe I think thirty five
five damn about to get drafted. I mean, to be honest,
I think it should start at like thirty and go
up to seventy. No, seventy, they're can you just killing

(28:33):
our people like that? If the boomers? If you think
about how think about how different the Iraq War would
have been if we'd sent the boomers out to fight
at first. I mean, we would lose a lot of boomers.
I mean, I guess, oh, dear, I should say that.
I don't know. I don't know. I mean it seems

(28:53):
like it's just seventeen seems too young. I could see
twenty to thirty, because after thirty, that's when you start
to be like my back, and then it's like I
think you should be I support like, I think twenty
two would be a good minimum age. You're you're old
enough to where we're like you you should I don't know,
maybe twenty you can't rent a car until you're twenty five.

(29:14):
That seems like why should you be able to drive
a tank? Yeah, that's true. If if fucking I mean
not that. I I don't want there to be a draft.
To be clear, I was just curious because I've been
thinking about it, because it's been people have been talking
about drafts and draft dodging. I was just curious. I
don't want to draft, to be clear. Please, I don't
oppose a draft, but if you're going to have a draft,

(29:34):
start with people who are fifty and older. That's that's
my my thinking on the matter. But speaking of the draft,
draft these products into your lifestyle. We're back and uh,
this is a fun moment. Um. We don't often have

(29:57):
a news break while we're recording an episode, but as
we went off to break, the news dropped that a
series of missiles were fired at all Assad Air Base,
a US air base near air Bill in northern Iraq.
Uh and our government is saying they were fired by Tehran.

(30:17):
Obviously I don't think from Tehran, UM, but it looks
like it was probably the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who
fired the missiles. UM. Now, a number of these missiles
were fired, like most recently a day or two prior
prior to that, by members of an Iraqi uh Sia
Milicius supported by Iran, so it's kind of not clear

(30:39):
how different this all is from that, but it seems like, uh,
this is at least continuing to happen, So I guess
we'll see how it goes. That's fun news. Yeah, great times. Yeah,
everything's great. I love it when all of the people
in charge your level headed, insane. UM. So yeah, when

(31:03):
we were talking in the past about horrible violence between
Iraq and Iran, Uh, we're talking about the Iraqi invasion
of Iran, the Iran Iraq war. Uh, that continued for
most of the eighties. So at the start of this war, um,
you know, saidam and hoped it would be an easy
victory due to the technical superiority of its forces, but
stiff Iranian resistance quickly turned the war into a World

(31:25):
War One style meat grinder. Uh. Kosum Sulimani was at
the front almost from the beginning. Now, there are two
different versions of this story, and I found both collected
by the American Enterprise Institute, a neo conservative think tank.
And again I must note that since Kasum's life is
very politicized, you're going to have trouble finding sources on
him that don't have some sort of clear bias. The

(31:45):
AI report sites at sources and seems pretty in line
with the other stuff I've read, uh, it doesn't seem
I'm not saying anything crazy in here at least um
and it describes two different theories as to how he
sort of got his career started the beginning of the
war uh quote. Sulimani reveals that he was given the
task of administering the Kerman Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps could's

(32:08):
garrison upon his return from Mahabad. In the face of
the Iraqi invasion of Iran, Sulimani train and expedited several
contingents from Kerman to the Southern front against Iraq. Later,
the i r g C sent a company under Sulimani's
command to Susan gard where it resisted Iraqi advances and
the Malikia Front. Malik provides an almost Who's an Iranian
scholar provides an almost entirely different account of Sulimani's participation

(32:31):
in the war against Iraq. According to Malak, Sulimani was
sent to the front as merely a participant and a
very casual mission transferring water to the front. He was
sent to the front for only two weeks, but the
enlightened and heavenly atmosphere of the front left such an
impression on the heart of the young and pier workman
or technician that he, rather than spending only two weeks
of his mission at the front, spent almost the entire
eight year long period of war there. Now, it's not

(32:54):
possible to verify either account Sulimani's own account gives the
impression of a young man with a clear purpose in life,
while Malick's account is sort of like uh idealistic, like
uh okay. So basically you've got the two different versions
you've got of how this guy starts the Iran Iraq war.
One is kind of like a pretty standard military story.

(33:16):
This guy is in charge of a military unit, he
is sent up to the front, and he distinguishes himself
self there, so he stays stationed there and fighting at
like the head of things for the entirety of the
war pretty much. And the other account is that he's
sent up there on like a non aggressive mission to
like deliver water to soldiers, and he just falls in
love with being up at the front line. UM. And

(33:38):
I don't know which of these is true. UM. I
can say that the most trustworthy Western account, UM comes
from a two thousand thirteen New Yorker article The Shadow
Commander by Death Dexter Filkins. It's the article you'll probably
see have seen shared on Sulimani after his assassination. Um.
It's a pretty balanced and well written article. UM. And

(33:59):
it those with the water Carrier sort of version of
events that he was sent up there to deliver water
to the front and that he like fell in love with,
you know, the culture of sort of frontline sacrifice and
you know, gradually got more and more and more involved. Um.
I do, I do think it's worth digging into, like
kind of what the motivations behind both variations on this
story might be. Um. I think the water Boy backstory

(34:22):
is kind of the one both the Iranian government and
Sulimani himself wanted people to believe. And I believe I
think yeah, Um, I I think that like, like clearly
obviously the government has a definite interest in pushing like
this view of like a guy going up to the
front and being kind of uh like inspired by the

(34:45):
heavenly atmosphere. It like that he that he feels there
that's like atmosphere of sacrifice. You kind of see that
in any sort of like government, Um, Like you compared
to like the movie American Sniper. UM. But it also
is is kind of worth outing that. Um. The official
version of Cossum's biography doesn't make him out to have

(35:05):
been like an early radical support of the Ayatola. It
admits that he was like kind of just working out
at the gym when all that was going on. UM.
So it is it is like entirely possible that this
is an accurate depiction of events that like when he
kind of really gets radicalized and inspired and and uh
like okay, finds his calling in life is at the

(35:28):
front line during this war. Um. And it's like there's
a lot of reason to believe that a lot of
young men find their first experiences with combat at like
a front line like that to be kind of intoxicating.
It tends to either like break young people or be
something they find like almost addictive. UM. And it seems

(35:49):
like it would be fair to say that Cossum wound
up on kind of the addicted side of that. In
the mid odds, while delivering a speech at the site
of one of the Iran Iraq Wars major battles, he
said this to a reporter, The battlefield is Mankind's lost paradise,
the paradise in which morality and human conduct are at
their highest. One type of paradise that men imagine is
about streams, beautiful maidens, and lush landscapes. But there is

(36:12):
another kind of paradise, the battlefield. So that's that's I mean,
it's one of those things. It's definitely the angle he
wants to portray about himself. It also might be true
because he spent the whole of his life in war zones. Basically, well,
I mean, I think some people, and it's just based
off my understanding of like career military people, like they

(36:33):
are they feel the most. I mean, it's weird to
say they feel the most at home at war, Like
that's where they thrive. It's what they understand best. Like
you take them and put them on a dinner table
and you're like, so how is your day, and they're like,
I mean, like they don't even know what to say
to you because they're like, look, I mean I fight wars,
I come up with strategy. This is the work I do,

(36:53):
And they don't really know how to deal with other
things outside of that. This is how they are. That's
how they're wided. I can I can I've had a
lot less experience at front lines than this guy, but
it is addictive. Um, Like the atmosphere out there, the addention,
the additional sense of like meaning everything is imbued with
and I do you know, I try to be like

(37:14):
critical whenever you're trying to figure out, like what do
these people want you to believe about them? Like what
are they putting out into the media versus what is true?
But I kind of think the version of events that
Cosum relates about his early war experiences are more honest
than not, just because it tracks with the rest of
the guy's life. Um, I think this is a dude

(37:36):
who falls in love with battle and sacrifice and makes
that his life for the next thirty years or whatever. Um.
That that That's how it seems to me. Um. Yeah.
And even the sources that hate Cosum Sulimani are consistent
that he served with distinction at the very front of
the Iran Iraq War for pretty much the entirety of

(37:58):
the time that it went on. And I'm gonna quote
from The York The New Yorker. Now, Sulimani earned a
reputation for bravery and a lawan, especially as a result
of reconnaissance missions he undertook behind Iraqi lines. He returned
from several missions bearing a goat, which his soldiers slaughtered
and grilled. Even the Iraqis our enemy admired him for this,
a former Revolutionary Guard officer who defected to the United
States told me on Iraqi radio, Sulimani became known as

(38:21):
the goat Thief, and recognition of his effectiveness, Alafona said,
he was put in charge of a brigade from Kermen
with men from Jim's, where he lifted weights. The Iranian
army was badly overmatched, and its commanders resorted to crude
and costly tactics. In human way of assaults, they sent
thousands of young men directly into the Iraqi lines, often
to clear mine fields, and soldiers died at a precipitous rate.

(38:41):
Sulimani seemed distressed by the loss of life. Before sending
his men into battle, he would embrace each one and
bid him goodbye, and speeches he praised martyred soldiers and
begged their forgiveness for not being martyred himself. When Sulimani's
superiors announced plans to attack the Fall Peninsula, he dismissed
them as wasteful and foolhardy. The former Revolutionary Guard officer
recalled seeing Sulimani in nineteen eighty five after a battle

(39:02):
in which his brigade had suffered many dead and wounded.
He was sitting alone in a corner of a tent.
He was very silent, thinking about the people he'd lost.
The officers said, this is a rough time. Yeah. Now,
from the best information available, Sulimani again was a dedicated soldier.
Rule Mark Correct was a young CIA officer in a

(39:24):
Stanbul during the war and he interfaced with many wounded
Iranian soldiers who were sent there on leave to recuperate,
and he met Sulimani there during one of the times
when the general was wounded. And correct job in the
CIA was basically to like meet these young Iranians away
from home to like recover and try to recruit them
as like CIA informants. So he met a lot of
these guys. Um said this later. I think he I mean,

(39:48):
he definitely talked to him. Um, I don't think it
took He was like, sorry, bro, I'm a high sees
you know how that be. Can't you know exactly what
he said? Hell? Yeah? And and Correct was a Gemini.
So okay, alright, I'm a Gemini. Oka correct said, You'd

(40:08):
get a whole variety of guardsmen. You'd get clerics, You'd
get people who came to breathe and horror and drink.
There were the broken and the burned out, the hollow eye,
the guys who had been destroyed, and then there were
the bright eyed guys who just couldn't wait to get
back to the front. I'd put Sulimani in the latter category.
So death estimates from the Iran Iraq War ranged from
around half a million to over a million, and over

(40:30):
a million honestly seems like the most credible UH estimate. UM.
It was, yeah, one of the most brutal conflicts of
the latter half of the twentieth century. Um and living
through the carnage it caused would have been a pretty
radicalizing experience for a guy like Suleimani, who saw both
wars beauty and its horror. Now Cosin rose rapidly through
the ranks, and by his mid twenties he was commanding

(40:52):
an entire division, and his lofty position in the military
would have made him aware of the incredibly shady dealings
going on in the background. I am speculating here, but
it is my suspicion that American policy during this period
would go on to have a major impact on the
man Kasum Sula mony became and the tactics he engaged
in for the rest of his life. In nineteen ninety two,

(41:12):
The New York Times published a bombshow report titled the U.
S Secretly gave aid to Iraq early in its war
against Iran or it should have been a bombshell report,
but since it was about the Middle East, and it
wasn't during one of the cumulative eleven weeks that our
nation nation has cared about stuff happening in the Middle East.
No one really noticed the article, but it was damning
and I'm going to read a quote from it now.

(41:34):
The Reagan administration secretly decided to provide highly classified intelligence
to Iraq in the spring of nineteen eighty two, more
than two years earlier than previously disclosed, while also permitting
the sale of American made arms to Baghdad and a
successful effort to help President Saddam Hussein avert imminent defeat
in the war with Iran. Former intelligence and State Department
officials say the American decision to lend crucial help to

(41:56):
Baghdad so early in the nineteen eight i Ran Iraq
war came after American intelligence agencies warned that Iraq was
on the verge of being overrun by Iran, whose army
was bolstered by the year before by covert shipments of
American made weapons. So, in other words, Iraq invades Iran,
and as soon as Reagan comes to power, we sent
I Ran a bunch of guns illegally. We actually have

(42:17):
Israel sell them the guns in order to bolster contra.
Oh this is before that ship. That's even that's a
different thing. Yeah. Wait, wait we did this twice. He
kept doing this. Yeah, you couldn't stop Ronald Reagan from
selling arms to Iran, well in buying them. Wait, so

(42:37):
what did he use the money to do this time? Well,
this was not about this first time. I don't think
there was even a profit. They were just first time.
It was like a geopolitical thing. Yeah, he didn't want
Iraq to overrun Iran, so we sent weapons to Iran.
And then because the way the Iran Iraq war goes
is Saddam invades Iran and it's a debacle for him him,

(42:58):
and he loses a huge number of men. But then Iran,
once they push Iraq out, invades Iraq as sort of like, well,
let's see how far we can take this ship, and
then it's a disaster for Iran. And what happens is
Saddam invades, then he gets pushed back, in large part
due to the fact that the US gave Iran a
bunch of weapons, and so the US is like, ship,

(43:20):
now Iran is going to overrun Iraq. So we send
Iraq a shitload of weapons. And not just do we
send them weapons, we send them high level intelligence on
the positioning of Iranian troops and military divisions with the
specific knowledge that Saddam Hussein is going to deploy chemical
weapons against those people. So we did not give Saddam
his chemical weapons, although his chemical stockpile was made with

(43:43):
a lot of help from European scientists, um, but we
specifically helped Saddam's military target the Iranian military, including uh
Sulimanis units, because his unit lost thousands of men to
chemical weapons with chemical weapons. So during this war, Sulimani
is at a high enough level that I'm pretty sure

(44:04):
if he doesn't know while it's going on. He knows
immediately afterwards that the United States is arming both sides
of this conflict. Um, and it is. It is a
very This is not I want to I want to
be clear here. This often gets like played as like
the CIA fucking around. This is not the CIA fucking around.
This is the state, state government. This is state money,

(44:26):
not like US. It's like, because he's been watching the
US for years, fuck with everybody. That's wild now one
former Yeah, I think it's interesting here because it's specifically
one they're like one of the State Department officials that
The New York Times talked to like specifically laid out
that this was not a ci A rogue initiative, but

(44:47):
that had been approved of the highest levels of the
Reagan administration. The exact quote he gave them was, we
wanted to avoid victory by both sides. UM. So basically
we wanted there to be a bloody stalemate. Um. It's like,
we're trying to be like really neutral about this, but
at the same time, we are going to give everybody weapons. Yeah,
We're going to give everybody weapons. And like the way

(45:09):
we did it was really shady. We basically looked the
we sold weapons uh to Jordan's Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
and then looked the other way while Jordan's Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait sent those weapons to Iraq. Yeah. Um from
the Times quote, American officials made no effort to stop
these sales, known to many in the administration, even though

(45:29):
American export law forbids the third party transfer of American
made arms without Washington's permission. So if Sulimani wasn't aware
of this all at the time, he was aware of
it by nineteen ninety two when this report came out
in the New York Times, I'm going to guess a
guy like him would have read it. It was not
a secret New York Times article alredating I assume Iran's

(45:50):
got a couple of subscriptions. Um, That's what I'm gonna say.
So now, when the war ended in nineteen eighty eight,
Sulimani and his division were post toe to the chaotic
eastern frontier of Iran, where gangs of narcotic smugglers laden
with Afghan opium had rendered much of the region wild
and uncontrollable. For several years. Kasum fought a brutal bloody

(46:10):
but ultimately successful war on drugs in that part of
the country. Among other things, he gained a reputation for
being incorruptible. He also spent a lot of time fighting
against the Taliban Um, who were enemies of Iran at
that period of time. And he spent a lot of
time like backing and moving in agents and like supporting
militias in the area that we're anti Taliban, including a

(46:30):
militia called the Northern Alliance who you might have heard
about when we invaded Afghanistan because they're the guys we
allied with two so now in ninet, based on all
of this experience, Kasum Suleimani was a natural choice to
put it put to put at the head of Iran's
notorious Kods Force. The Koods Force is an elite division

(46:51):
within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and essentially serves as
a serves in a mix of functions a bit like
the CIA cons across with like Joint Special Operations command Um.
The Iran Iraq War had ended after a series of
durrass of disastrous offenses into a rat cost hundreds of
thousands of Iranian lives, and this debacle had convinced the
government that their military future lay in asymmetrical warfare. UM.

(47:13):
You can't compete with like the big Western nations and
like straight up tank battles, and it's incredibly wasteful to try.
So instead, let's let's get smarter about this, you know,
fund insurgencies get better at that sort of fighting. UM,
And they, in this way, Iran kind of guesses what
the warfare is going to be like in the twenty
first century. They're definitely ahead of the United States UM

(47:35):
in figuring that part out so UH. In the wake
of the Gulf War. As US influence expanded across the
Middle East, UH, the Kood's Force became increasingly important important
to Iran's geopolitical strategy. It was basically responsible for projecting
power outside of the Islamic Republic, so Costum's appointment to
the head of this force was the sign of the

(47:55):
deep trust the Ayatola placed in him over the years
he held the judg ab Sulimani would prove to be
a dedicated supporter of the conservative clerical elements in the
Iranian government. In nineteen a series of student protests racked
the country and pushed for reform within the nation's harsh
religious laws. President Mohammed Khatami, who had come to power
as a reformer, was unwilling to crack down on these students.

(48:19):
Costam Sulimani and several other Revolutionary Guard commanders signed a
letter promising they would depose the president if he did
not brutally crushed the demonstrations, which were brutally crushed in
the wake of this um And speaking of brutally crushing
student demonstrations for liberty, okay, you know who won't do that?

(48:41):
An ad? An ad sponsor, a sponsor unless it unless
it's one of our Ray Theon sponsored ads. That kind
of their business. Yeah, although Raytheon does also need uh
insurgent movements in order to stay profitable. So really, you know,
if you're an insert argent, Raith Theon is your best friend?

(49:02):
Um y by ray I do not stand by that.
Then it cuts to immediately we got a ray Theon
ad because we have horrible I am. I am hoping
for the day we get a Raytheon AD. That's gonna
be fun. I mean, don't be surprised. We were getting
Coke bro ads and we're getting Fox News ads. We

(49:26):
get random acts it's beautiful. I'm just excited we're back.
So we've been talking about the Koods Force a bit,
which Cosum Suleimani has just been appointed to head. UM.

(49:46):
The Kods Force is named after the Farsi word for
Jerusalem UM, which gives you some idea as to what
it's seen as its ultimate purpose UM. And there's definitely
like a big angle that's sort of like Iran is
the head of this axis against Israel UM and against
the United States. And in fact, the term access of
resistance is used a lot to like what they're trying

(50:06):
to build in the Middle East in opposition to Israel
in the United States UM. And the Koods Force headquarters
is very notably UM on the former US embassy campus
in Tehran, the embassy that was taken over UM during
the Iranian Revolution and stuff, which is like that's a
move right there. UM. So now that he's in charge

(50:30):
of the Kods Force, Kasam Sulamanni embarks in a policy
of recruiting and training agents all across the Middle East. UM.
His biggest success is probably Hezbollah, an Iran supported militia
and political party in Lebanon that spent most of the
last couple of decades chucking rockets into Israel and being
bombed by Israel in response. UM. Hezbollah started as a
resistance to the Israeli occupation because Israel occupied a lot

(50:54):
of Lebanon up until about two thousand UM, and constant
Hezblah and surgeon attacks were a big part of why
Israel eventually like gave up on that occupation. UM. So
it's it's again. I'm not gonna be doing justice to
all of this history. I'm trying to provide the broad
strokes UM. And a lot of the ability of Iran

(51:15):
to get weapons too has Blah in Lebanon, and particularly
to send them the rockets that has Blaw like intermittently
fires into Israel. Um is possible because Iran's ally is Syria,
and so Iran is able to move rockets and support
in like money and weapons up through Syria. So keep
that in mind because that's going to be very important later.

(51:38):
So Kasson was also busy in Afghanistan. The Taliban are
sworn enemies of Iran's clerical regime, and for years before
nine eleven, Sulimani was integral in backing and supporting the
resistance to the Taliban, and I'm gonna quote now from
a report in West Points Combating Terrorists Terrorism Center quote.
In August, a few months into Celimonies, Uh Tenor at

(51:59):
the head of the KOD's force, Taliban forces swept into
the northern Afghan city of Missouri Sharif, home to a
substantial community of ethnic Hazaras far as He speaking Shia Muslims.
The Taliban initiated a brutal pogrom against members of the minority,
trashing homes, raping women and girls, and massacring hundreds of
Shia men and boys. Among the dead was a group
of nine Iranians, eight diplomats and a journalist. At this

(52:21):
naked provocation, factions on both sides turned white hot for war.
The I r g c S overall commander at the time,
Yah yah Rahim Sava Safawi, requested Supreme Leader khamenes Uh
permission for the punishment of the Taliban to advance to Harat,
a city in western Afghanistan, annihilate, punish, eliminate them. Iran
began massing an invasion force of almost a quarter of

(52:43):
a million soldiers along the Afghan border. Reportedly, it was
Sulimani who stepped in and diffused the situation without resort
resorting to further violence. Instead of confronting the Taliban directly,
Sulimani opted to throw increased Iranian support behind the opposition
Northern Alliance, personally helping to direct the groups operations from
a based across Afghanistan's northern border and Tajikistan. It was

(53:05):
a model of proxy warfare to which he would return
again and again. So this is really important. There's this
the Taliban murders a bunch of people, including Iranians, and
there's this huge outrage within Iran calling for an invasion
of Afghanistan in the late nineteen nineties, and they have
a quarter of a million men mass to do it.
And Solimani says, no, no, no, no, funk that we've

(53:26):
seen what mass invasions look like. We've seen what like
war on that scale looks like, particularly against an enemy
like the Taliban that's never going to stand and fight.
He's kind of predicting, like what would happen in the
United States later, Like that's a bad idea. The smart
thing to do is send in support and trainers and
commandos and bolster one of the militias that of Afghans

(53:47):
that are already fighting the Northern Alliance or that are
already fighting the Taliban, and like that's that's the way
to actually make progress in Afghanistan. There's no benefit to
invading Afghanistan, um, which you know, looking at the history
of invading Afghanistan, not a dumb play um now. Obviously

(54:08):
in two thousand one, UH later in two thousand one,
nine eleven, nine eleven, all over everybody's asses, uh, and
the US committed itself to invading and then never leaving
Afghanistan for reasons which are still unclear. Uh. Kasam Sulimani
was only too happy to lend his forces support to
the American military effort in that country. He and his
KOD's force and their proxies in Afghanistan worked closely with

(54:31):
US Special forces, in particular, could Force soldiers and US
special operators fought side by side against the Taliban, and
one of those chapters of the War on Terror that
we do not talk about very much anymore, But this
is where things are at the start of the war
in Afghanistan is Iran in the United States very much
working together against the Taliban. So as the Bush administration

(54:53):
began to ramp up the propaganda campaign that preceded the
totally successful and widely praised invasion of Iraq. There was
reason to believe that the United that US Iran relations
had turned a corner. The government of Iran and Kassam
Sulamani hated both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and there
are a few better ways to turn a nation from
enemy to friend than fighting two back to back wars
as allies. I mean, it worked for the United States

(55:16):
in England. Um, So the question is how did things
get fucked up from this point? Like that seems like
a pretty great spot to be and you're fighting alongside
each other. You're like fucking up two of their big
enemies in a row. Uh, what turned things bad? Do
you have any guesses? I'm gonna say, um, white people
because they're never happy, yeah, color or grown grown up

(55:42):
with immigrants. You just take what you can get and
you understand and you go, I'm not going to cause
more trouble because, like, I see what the situation is,
and I know it might not be better for us
in any other way. This might be as good as
it gets. So I'm gonna fucking shut up and keep
my head down and not speak out where I'm not
supposed to not supposed to speak out. And maybe I'm
speaking a little too much from how my father would
talk to me, But that's what it had always felt like. Well,

(56:05):
you know who didn't worry at all about speaking out
recklessly because he knew that none of it would ever
harm him was was was George Bush, and one of
his speech writers. In January two thousand two, President George W.
Bush delivered his first post nine eleven State of the
Union address. He named Iran as part of an access
of evil, alongside Iraq and North Korea, three nations which

(56:28):
notably did not collaborate or work together in any meaningful
sense of the word. This declaration took Iran by surprise,
considering their soldiers were literally fighting alongside the United States
in Afghanistan. Now. Ryan Crocker was deputy chief of the
American Embassy in Kabul at the time. As a result
of this position, he communicated regularly with the representative of

(56:48):
the Iranian government, a guy who was basically the direct
mouthpiece for Kosum Sulamani Uh. Crocker had not been warned
that the United States was about to declare Iran part
of an access of evil in a speech, and he
was very unpleasantly surprised when he realized this is what
had gone down. And here's how Crocker recalled the hours
after the Access of Evil speech and Kabul quote. He

(57:09):
saw the negotiator, the Iranian negotiator the next day at
the U N compound in Kabul, and he was furious,
you completely damaged me, Crocker recalled him, saying, Sulimani isn't
a tearing rage. He feels compromised. The negotiator told Crocker
that at great political risk, Sulimani had been contemplating a
complete reevaluation of the United States. Say why wouldn't he?

(57:32):
Maybe it's time to rethink our relationship with the Americans.
The Access of Evil speech brought these meetings to an end.
Reformers inside the government who had advocated a rapproach ma
with the United States were put on the defensive. Recalling
that time, Crocker shook his head. We were just that close.
One speed word and one speech changed history. Great Bush,

(57:53):
but hey, no bushes are cool people to hang out
with Ellen, and we should we should. I want to
note bus should get some blame for that speech, but
we should throw a lot of blame too on the
guy who wrote The Access of Evil Speech and The
Acts as of Evil Speech. Writer was a fellow you
might know from the Internet today named David Frome, now

(58:13):
from is currently a staff Yeah, he's currently a staff
writer at The Atlantic and a never Trump idiot grifter king.
He wrote a stupid book about how Trump is bad
and despite the fact that all of his previous work
as a neo con was laying the ground for Trump anyway.
Fun David Frome. Uh, you can find him on Twitter
at at David Frome, but you probably shouldn't because this

(58:34):
ship bird has done more than enough damage to the
world and should not be listened to by anyone on
any subject ever. Again, I will admit that it's pretty
hilarious that his current pinned tweet, which I think he
means is a reference to the Trump administration, is the sentence.
When this is all over, nobody will admit to ever
having supported it. I fucking hate David Frum. He's a yeah,

(59:00):
but infair. It is debatable as to whether or not
Iran was ever actually seeking reproache ma with the United
States Cossum was again, I can't emphasize this enough a
spy chief, and every piece of information that he allowed
to get out about him carries the risk of being
a piece of disinformation, because that's what spies do. Now,
maybe he wanted to spread the rumor that the access

(59:22):
of evil speech is why relations broke off. It's impossible
to prove this to a point of certainty. All that
I can prove to a point of certainty is that
David Froume is an idiot. Now, whatever the truth behind
all this, By two thousand four, Saddam Hussein was out
of Iraq and Sulimani's Good's Force was committed to ensuring
that the US followed him. They began to manufacture and
export huge amounts of explosively formed projectiles or e f

(59:44):
p s. These are basically roadside bombs that launch a
molten copper slug into armored vehicles. E fps were miles
ahead of the indigenous improvised explosives in Iraq, and they
could only have been manufactured in Iran and sent into Iraq.
And in short order, rough of American combat deaths in
Iraq were blamed on these weapons. Um So this is

(01:00:05):
like what a lot of US military planners, uh will
will like really point to as to why they hated Sulimani.
And it's one of those things there were There have
been a lot of people in the United States military
establishments since Bush was in office who wanted us to
assassinate this guy, and both Bush and Obama were intelligent

(01:00:26):
enough to be like, it's just not worth the fallout. Um.
There's a part of me that thinks the reason he
was assassinated is that eventually enough of those guys got
forced out by Trump that some of the military people
who were just thinking of like they're dead friends, were like,
we've got a chance, he doesn't know what the consequences
will be, and we can get rid of this guy
that we hate. Uh I think that might be what happened. Yeah,

(01:00:49):
now and not true logic, Yes, yes, And it's one
of those things. I don't morally blame a military leader
who had friends is killed by an e f P
for wanting that guy to be killed. It's what you
do if your friends got killed. But part of the
reason why the military doesn't run the show in our
government is because you shouldn't have those people making the

(01:01:12):
calls you should have civilians with a level of separation
from all of those sort of calls and a level
of emotional separation making decisions, Which is why we didn't
assassinate this guy earlier, because the powers that be, the
civilians who are running our military as it is supposed
to be, We're like, I know you're pissed, but that's

(01:01:34):
a bad call. Like it's going to endanger more lives.
And I think one of the stories of the Trump
administration is again, those norms that existed for a good
fucking reason going away. Um yeah, now, um, some of
that's my own speculation, but we do know that the
e f P s in particular, are why so many

(01:01:55):
US military people really hated Sulimani. Now, Kassam Suleimani's war
against the United States in Iraq was a textbook case
of how to wage a successful insurgent conflict. He and
his Kods force succeeded in briefly bridging the Sunny Shiite
divide among insurgent groups, supporting both in their efforts to
kill American soldiers. One way he did this was by

(01:02:17):
using his connections to the head of Intelligence and Assad
Syria to allow Sunny extremists to move through Syria and
across Iraq's porous border. This provided huge numbers of foreign
fighters to battle American soldiers. It also helped establish the
networks of Sunny extremists in that region, in Syria and
in northern Iraq that years later would coalesce into what
we now know as isis Um. So this is again

(01:02:40):
a decision with profoundly mixed consequences, and I'm gonna quote
again from that New Yorker article. In many cases al
Qaeda was allowed to degree of freedom in Iran as well.
Crocker told me that in May two thousand three, the
Americans received intelligence that al Qaeda fighters in Iran were
preparing to an attack on Western targets in Saudi Arabia.
Crocker was alarmed they were there under Iranian protection planning operations,

(01:03:02):
he said, he flew to Geneva and passed a warning
to the Iranians, but to no avail. Militants bombed three
residential compounds in Riad, killing thirty five people, including nine Americans.
As it turned out, the Iranian strategy of a betting
Sunni extremists backfired horrendously. Shortly after the occupation, began, the
same extremists began attacking Shiite civilians and the Shiite dominated
Iraqi government. It was a preview of the civil war

(01:03:24):
to come welcome to the Middle East. The Western diplotin
Baghdad told me Sulimani wanted to bleed the Americans, so
he invited in the Jihadis and things got out of control. Now,
one of the things that's really frustrating to me right
now is that you'll see and like a lot of
the anti war left people celebrating Sulimani as like an
enemy of ISIS and Islamic extremism. And it's true that

(01:03:44):
his forces fought against ISIS and that he helped in
the campaign to destroy ISIS, but he was also integral
and helping ISIS come about and kind of the same
ways that the United States were. And this is one
of the things that I think ironic to me is
that if you look at like a lot of the
mistakes that the US made that allowed ISIS to get
a foothold in Syria and Iraq, and a lot of
the mistakes Iran made that allowed ISIS to gain a

(01:04:06):
foothold in the same region, they're not entirely different. Um.
And I think they're both based in this kind of
an attempt to use these forces for your own gain
that backfired. Um. It's an interesting story, UM, but it's
a lot more complicated than a lot of people on
Twitter are giving it credit for being. So that's that's
my take on it. Now. In two thousand eleven, when

(01:04:29):
the Syrian Civil War started up, Sulimani ordered members of
the Iraqi Shiite militias that he'd formed to help resist
the US into Syria to support Assad's beleaguered and still
incompetent military. UM. And this is again like there's quotes
that you get from like members of the Iranian government
at the time that are, like, if we lose Damascus,
we lose Tehran. Um. Because like Syria connects uh Iran

(01:04:54):
to Lebanon, and like Hezbollah is a hugely important chunk
of like Iran's international Paul. He's particularly like in terms
of like what they consider to be the resistance to Israel.
So there's very much this understanding that we cannot let
Asad in Syria fall or it's the end of us. UM.
And there's also another one of the things that you hear,

(01:05:14):
you'll hear quotes along the lines of unlike the Americans,
we stick by our friends. And obviously I hate me
some Bashar al Assad. But there's a point there that
I think gets to like why the United States is
doomed to always lose whenever it gets involved in conflict
in the Middle East. Is a country like Iran under
a guy like Sulimani and whoever is going to come

(01:05:36):
next to him is capable of portrait of of of
of thinking in terms of decades, in terms of we
have been supporting this regime in Syria for years, and
we will continue to and we will gain certain long
term benefits from being solid as a rock in our
support of this regime. And they did things like they
loaned Asad seven billion dollars, they sent thousands of soldiers

(01:05:57):
in to fight, a significant chunk of whom died fighting
for Assad um. Whereas in the United States you never
get plans that go much further than four maybe eight years,
and nobody who we back, as we've the Kurds in
Syria have most recently seen nobody can trust that will
stay there for any length of time. Um, Which is
like when you're looking at why we continually funk up

(01:06:19):
in the Middle East. I think that is as much
of a reason as anything, is the fact that, like
nobody can really trust us to hang around um. And meanwhile,
with a country like Iran, if you're Iran's ally, you
kind of can know what they're going to do, like
and and it's not because you know, it's because of
national self interest. Is because Iran sees Syria as an

(01:06:42):
integral part of its national defense and its foreign policy.
But like, if you're Syria, you can trust Iran to
do certain things to back your ass up. And if
your US ally in the Middle East, you can never
trust the United States further than about four years out.
And that's just the way it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's uh yeah yeah. I mean it's like the American

(01:07:05):
way is to always just have your own back and
not consider um. The consequence is in a weird way.
Ah yeah, I don't. I don't care for this. It's
this problem of like, like, obviously I'm not in favor
of I think it's good that we get to vote
regularly on a new government, but there are aspects of
it that are dumb. And one of the things that's

(01:07:26):
dumb about it is that it means our entire foreign
policy changes on a dime every four to eight years,
And maybe there's a way to have a government where
we still get to vote out leaders regularly, but also
we don't whiplash our allies every time someone with a
different opinion winds up. I don't know, maybe maybe there's
a way to figure that out. God you would think
or like, yeah, just keep it. I don't even know,

(01:07:50):
Like it's so it's so tough to think about, because, like,
I mean more so, when you were talking, I started
thinking a lot about my Iranian family and hoping. I
feel like the best outcome would be that the US
understands that the attacks were the missiles that were just
fired are in retaliation of them killing Slemani, and they

(01:08:15):
just take it as that they go, Okay, that's enough,
and that they don't retaliate into your on because I
feel like, um, this country can't I don't even know
like what to think, Like we can't stand here and
then be like okay, well let's just all vote. Like
it doesn't nothing makes sense anymore. And I'm really starting

(01:08:36):
to become a little unraveled as we go on. Um,
I don't know, I I really it doesn't even feel
like just being like, well, we gotta get out there
and vote them out is enough. It's like, why is
no one taking this person out of the control? Like
it seems so I feel so lost currently. I don't

(01:08:56):
know what I want. I just want it to be done.
I want this man to be out, and I don't
want I don't want anyone else to die. Is that fun?
Is that like just to like I mean, like right now,
the most recent news that just came out after the
Iran launched missiles into the Al Asad air base near

(01:09:19):
or Bill is that um, one of the advisors to
Iran Supreme Leader Aguin named said Jollily, posted to Twitter
a picture of the Iranian flag. And if you'll remember
when Trump announced Trump announced the killing of Sulimani basically
by just tweeting a picture of the American flag. Um,

(01:09:39):
And it's just keeps getting dumber, like like, don't that's
not the direction it should be heading, where we just
post flags and shoot missiles at each other, Like that's
that's not a boy. Um, I'm not happy with that development. Um. Yeah.
And also it just came out that on the In

(01:10:00):
officials are warning that if the U S retaliates to
the strikes that are on just launched has below will
fire rockets at Israel. So that's this is all going
great in real time. Everybody fun one super cool. I mean,
I think the best we can do is understand that
we did something we shouldn't have done without a plan,

(01:10:22):
and now we have no plan, and now we're here,
and it's like, what are we supposed to do. You
can't go into Iran. You just can't do it. You
cannot go start a war with Iran. You definitely can't
go started like a foot war with Iran. You're not
this isn't this is absurd. We were No one's going
to survive this. You're not gonna put these poor military.
The US military does not deserve this. They do not

(01:10:44):
deserve to have to fly troops out there while they're
literally telling troops to get the funk out of here.
This is not good, and here we are. It's it's
fundamentally like. One of the things that was really frustrating
in the lead up to the fucking election is that
there would be all these guys who are ostensibly on
the left who would be like, well, Donald Trump at

(01:11:06):
least is like our best bet, Like this is someone
I really respect. Otherwise that Jeremy Scahill over the intercept
something said something like Trump is the best might be
our best bet for like not any getting America involved
into any new wars, And it was like, if you
listen to his actual rhetoric, he was never anti war.
He was just anti actually like committing Like he was

(01:11:27):
never anti war. He was anti the only thing about
war that isn't all negative, which is like the ability
to build long term relationships and potentially stability in areas
at the cost of lives and in a significant amount
of money. Um, like what we had helped to achieve
in chunks of northeast Syria, Um, Like what we helped
to achieve in chunks of northern Iraq. Um. He was

(01:11:47):
against that stuff. He was not against murdering people and
sending in troops as long as he got to steal
oil from people like that. That was the thing that
Trump said is like number one, he's fine with fucking
bombing the ship out of people, and number two, he
thinks when we're involved in the country militarily, we should
get to take half their oil. Like he was always
just a pirate Um, just a bunch of idiots tricked

(01:12:10):
themselves into thinking he was anti war because they hated
Hillary Clinton. It's just so frustrating, Um, how dumb people were. Uh,
and now we're seeing like, yeah, he's just sending more
troops into the Middle East and they're getting shot at
by rockets and he's bombing sovereign nations that are on
paper are military allies. Because it's just so dumb. It's

(01:12:31):
so dumb. Yeah, there's no lodging, But do you think
there's an adult in the room anywhere in this situation? Uh?
Not not anymore, not anymore. I Mean the problem is
that like everybody's convinced they're the adult in they're like
these military guys, the guys who I suspect like pushed,
We're you're part of what was pushing the assassination of Sulimani.

(01:12:53):
Would say that, like, no, we are the hard nosed adults.
We understand the realities of the world. And this guy
was a bad guy and he killed our men, and
like sometimes you've got to take it to the bad guys.
And I think Sulimani was a bad guy. I think
he did some terrible things. I think he's backing of
the Assad regime was awful. But the right answer and
the smart answer, is not always killing everybody who does

(01:13:13):
bad things, especially since for as much ugly ship as
Sulimani did, you can find American generals who did a
lot of similar things who are alive today, and Costum
Suleimani doesn't have nearly as much blood on his hands
to say Henry Kissinger does. Like that's just a reality
of the world, is that if you go around missile
striking everybody who has done bad things, you will be

(01:13:33):
at war with everybody and a lot more people will die.
And it's not satisfying when you've lost a friend as
a result of something that guy did, but that guy
lost friends as a result of something some of your
buddies did, because like, that's the fucking way this game
is played. And I hate all of the people who
actually consider it a game, which is most of the

(01:13:55):
people that we talk about in stories like this, Like,
I hate them all, um. But I was thinking the
other day how circular history is, like it's I had
a very dark thought where I was like, oh, this
will never end, like we will maybe relations will get better,
maybe they won't, but we will be in this cycle forever,

(01:14:17):
and it feels like it just happens and happens and
happens we we do whenever I get too trapped in
that kind of thinking. One thing I like to think
about is France and Germany, um, and France and England,
which are all countries that were trapped in a centuries
long cycle of constant and incredibly bloody warfare, and now

(01:14:39):
all of their teenagers fuck each other every summer and
get drunk and take ecstasy and dance to electronic music
and there's never going to be a war between those
three countries again. Um, and a ton of ugly blood
between them. UM. So I don't think it's hopeless. That's
a good way to look at it. I can see
that it does require a number one. It requires being like, well, okay,

(01:15:02):
you have guys on your side who killed a lot
of our guys, and the ship they did was fucked up.
We have guys on our side who killed a lot
of your guys, and that ship is fucked up, and
at some point we have to stop taking vengeance on
each other. Otherwise we're just going to keep killing each
other and nothing's ever going to get better. And that is.
Eventually France and Germany and England stopped counting who had
killed more of the other sons and they just started

(01:15:25):
taking ecstasy together in dance clubs and that made things better.
Um and yeah, we've had a digression a bit. We
should get back to talking about gossip. Sulimani um so UH.
In two thousand and eleven, when the Syrian Civil War
started up, Sulimani ordered members of the Iraqi Shiite militias
he'd formed to resist the us uh UM into Syria

(01:15:47):
to support Assad's beleaguered military, which was, as it is now,
completely incompetent. I was just watching a video the other
day of like thirty soldiers of the Syrian Arab army
supported by a tank fleeing from nine UH like jihadi
fighters in it lip. It's just like, you guys still
haven't figured out to be a fucking military fleeing they

(01:16:08):
were just like there their their conscripts, they're poorly trained,
they don't know what they're doing. They're poor, like they're
only led by corrupt Like the only competent fighters in
in Uh in Syria on the side of the Syrian
government are like Hezbollah and other like Iranian backed militias
like they have a lot of competent fight and that's yeah.
I'm gonna read a quote from The New Yorker about

(01:16:29):
that quote. Sulimani also set up additional Shia militia groups.
These included a group of Afghans resident in Iran, the
Fatimiyun Division, in a Pakistani outfit, the zeb Nyabian Brigade.
The very names of these groups announced Iran's sectarian intentions.
Shia Muslims accord Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, a
status comparable to that of the Virgin Marrian Catholicism, while

(01:16:50):
Zineb Fatima's daughter was the sister of Hussain, Who's whose
death at the Battle of Karbala formed a pivotal moment,
and as soon as Shia Skism, forces under his command
were instrumental in many of the major offensive during the
Syrian War, including the recapture of Kassar from the rebels.
So most experts view Iran support as embodied by Cossum Sulimani,
because he is completely in charge of the Iranian effort

(01:17:12):
in Syria is absolutely critical to Bashar al Assad's staying
in power, and Cosum Sulimani is really the man who
runs the Syrian Civil War for the regime for a
lot of the war. Like he is one of the
top players and maybe the only competent one um or
at least like the I mean, there's other competent Iranians involved.

(01:17:33):
Nobody in the Syrian Aram Army is very good at
what they do UM Now. Today the s a A
is obviously still not great, but the entrance of Iranian
back militias, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, provided the regime with
enough competent fighters to recapture critical cities like Aleppo and
swing the type of war back in Assad's favor. And
it's it's hard to exaggerate how much human misery this

(01:17:53):
has been responsible for. Uh. The siege of Aleppo alone
costs thousands of lives, and the fact that Assad's regime
survives has allowed them to, among their things, incarceraate and
torture to death to death around a hundred thousand people.
This is all done, or at least the support of
the Assad regime by Sulimani was done for nationalist motivations.
He was fighting for Iran more than anything else. Um

(01:18:15):
And yeah, yeah, so we we we've gone into why
that's critical, for for why they see it as like
a matter of sort of like national survival to support
Syria in this war. Um So, yeah, I I I
think that's important to understand. Uh So. While almost every
US attempt at projecting power and influence UH in the

(01:18:35):
Middle East over the last twenty years has in an
object failure, mass death and unspeakable expense, Kasam Sulimani and
his Kods force have been extremely successful in spreading Iranian
power across the region thanks to a network of militias
and an incredibly successful political influence campaign. Iran near now
has deep connections to the government of Iraq, basically owns
the government of Syria, and maintains a sizeable base of

(01:18:58):
power in Lebanon. Uh In addition to that, they also
have a huge base of control and support in Yemen
because the Hoothy militias that are currently fighting against the
Saudi led coalition are backed by Iran, and it costs Iran.
You know, they spend millions per week supporting the Hoothies
and the Saudi spend billions per week bombing them. Um

(01:19:18):
And it's kind of the opposite of the case. In
in Syria and in Syria, Iran is definitely on support
of the side that has killed the most innocent people.
In Yemen, they are on support of the side that
is fighting against the people who are murdering civilians by
the thousands. The Saudi led coalition has been responsible for
the vast majority of the deaths and the Yemen So
there's always very fucking complicated when we talk about these

(01:19:41):
different conflicts. And I'm not going to give the Iranian
campaign sort of in Yemen as much time as it
deserves UM, but it's important to see, like when Kasum
comes to power in charge of the goods force UM
like other than like Hezbollah, which is still at that
point kind of nascent in Lebanon, UH, they don't have
a lot of influence in the rest of the region.

(01:20:03):
And by the time Kassam Sulimani is killed, the Iraqi
government is on his side. There are a hundred and
fifty thousand Shia militiamen backed by Iran living who are
like iraqis UH. There are Iran backed militias in Syria
that have been responsible for keeping the government in power,
and the government owes around billions of dollars. Hezblah is

(01:20:24):
one of the most dominant forces in Lebanon. UM, and
they also Iran has a huge amount of influence and
dominance and Yemen as a result of their support of
the Hoothies. That's all Sulimani is doing. Like, that's a
huge amount of power and influence. And you have to
compare how Iran's ability to project power in the Middle
East has changed in twenty years to how the United

(01:20:45):
States has has where we you know, in a lot
of ways, it's completely collapsed, Um, as a result of
the fact that, like we're we're incredibly inconsistent. We don't
tend to run our campaigns competently. Like it's one of
those things. Um. On a purely intellectual level, he's very
good at what he did. UM. He had an incredibly

(01:21:06):
successful career, almost breathtakingly so UM. Yeah, he did so
pretty wild. Yeah, it's it's he's a very influential fellow now. UM.
For most of twenty years, Kasum traveled with near impunity
from Baghdad to Damascus to the suddenly front line outposts
in battlefields of the Iraqi and Syrian civil Wars. In

(01:21:27):
the years since two thousand eleven, he went from a
silent background figure which is appropriate for a spymaster, to
a highly public war hero, constantly photographed standing on trucks
surrounded by fighters. His image grew even more prominent after
two thousand thirteen, when Isis began its bloody march across
the Middle East. The Shia militia's that Cossum had spent
years building were some of the few capable forces interact

(01:21:48):
during the early stages of the Civil War, when the
soldiers of the Islamic State were at the gates of Baghdad.
The role these militias played in stopping ices is wildly
overstated now online, but in the early days of the
civil war they were quite important. As the war drove
on and the Iraqi Army reformed and retrained other units,
including the famous Golden Division and the counter Terrorism Forces UH,

(01:22:09):
these forces did the vast majority of the actual fighting
to retake Iraq from dash Um. When I was there,
we ran into the Hasht al Shabbi militias, which is
sort of like the popular mobilization forces. The Iranian back
militias um now and again, but it really was like
most of the fighting, like the recapturing of Fallujah and
Mosle like it was. It was like Golden Division and
and you know CTS forces more than anything else that

(01:22:32):
did a lot of that fighting um and kind of
like where the popular mobilization forces were critical was like
kind of when when when Isis was moving on Baghdad
and stuff, as the kind of the West struggled to
get its act together and providing you know, useful support.
So you don't want to denigrate and say that they
didn't have an impact in stopping the spread of ISIS,
because they absolutely did. But like the idea that that

(01:22:55):
sulamani Is militias beat Isis, I mean it it ignores
thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of Sunni Iraqis
who did the bulk of the actual fighting against dash Um. Yeah. Anyway, uh,
And I should note that my source on this take
is not just due to my own biased recollections from
my time in Iraq. It's also due to other sources

(01:23:16):
within the Iranian government. Because The Intercept recently published a
leaked archive of secret Iranian spy cables that they got
their hands on. Something These cables came from members of
the Iranian ministry of Intelligence and Security, which tends to
be pretty antagonistic towards the Koods Force because again, and
this is another frustrating thing, like you read about like
coverage of this, and it like around this, around that,

(01:23:37):
and like to a certain extent, it's hard not to
when you're like talking about multiple different nations, but like
there are a number of different forces within the Iranian
government that want different things. To me, why the intelligence
is not fans of the Kuds, Yeah, as I understand it,
it kind of goes back to like we were saying,
when you know, you have you have the revolution and

(01:24:01):
the shaw is out and the new government doesn't really
trust the military or the existing security apparatus, Like you're
not going to tear all of that down because it's
too much of a pain in the ask to do so,
but you also don't trust them. So the Revolutionary Guard
and the Koods Force come out as a way for
the clerics to kind of have their own military and
intelligence machine. The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security is

(01:24:23):
like basically the descendant of like the older standing security
services in Iran um and so they're they're not the
Koods Force, and in a lot of ways they view
them as kind of an enemy because they're like opposed
sort of forces. Um like that they're they're more antagonistic.
Opposed isn't quite the right word, but like I hope

(01:24:44):
I've gotten that across to some extent. I'm not an
expert on this, and I've ever the understand like read
up on that or even really thought about it. It
never occurred to me, but it really makes sense because
there's so many working, like you said, forces in Iran
that you know, I tend to forget sometimes that like

(01:25:04):
the whole era before the revolution was just a different time.
And while they did try and eliminate the majority of
that influence, like certain things are still kind of like
working within the Uran just because they're needed to be. Yeah, yeah,
you're not gonna like you're not gonna fire all of
the police and stuff overnight, especially since you need those

(01:25:26):
people to like help you like assert your power. Now,
Like it's just like but then you don't trust them
and you build your own structure and like things move
on from there. That that's the understanding that I have.
Um So, anyway, a bunch of these cables from the
Ministry of Intelligence and Security about these guys talking about
Sulimani and his malicious in Iraq leaked out and these

(01:25:48):
are all from two thousand, two fifteen, and I'm gonna
quote from that Intercept article now. Well, the Iranian led
war against Diceis was raging. Iranian spies privately expressed concern
that the brutal tactics favored by Sulimani and his Iraqi
proxies were laying the groundwork from major blowback against the
Iranian presence in Iraq. Sulimani was also criticized for his
own alleged self promotion amid the fighting photos of the

(01:26:09):
Iranian commander on battlefields across Iraq had helped build his
image as an iconic military leader, but that outsized image
was also turning him into a figure of terror for
many organized Iraqis, for many ordinary Iraqis, and some documents
intelligence officers criticized Sulimani for alienating Sunni Arab communities and
helping to create circumstances that justified or a newt American

(01:26:29):
military presence in Iraq two thousand fourteen m o I
S document Limit limited that partly because Sulimani broadcasted his
role as commander of many of the Iraqi Shia militious
fighting Isis. Iraqi Sunni's blamed the Iranian government for the
persecution that many were suffering at the hands of these
same forces. The document discussed a recent assault by Iran
backed forces against ISIS fighters in the Sunni farming community

(01:26:50):
of Jurf al Sakar. The attack had included a number
of Shia militia groups, including a notorious outfit known as
a Syb al al Hawk, which is also the guys
who fired missiles at those u US bases a couple
of weeks ago and a couple of days ago. The
militia succeeded in routing the Islamic State, but their victory
soon gave way to a generalized slaughter of locals, transforming
the sweetness of Iran's triumphanto bitterness. In the words of

(01:27:11):
one case officer, this is that case officer talking. It
is mandatory and necessary to put some limits and borders
on the violence being inflicted against innocent Sunni people in
Iraq and the things that Mr. Sulimani is doing. Otherwise,
the violence between Shia and Sunni will continue. With the
mos I m I support report continued. At the moment,
whatever happens to Sunni's directly or indirectly is seen as
having been done by Iran, even when Iran has nothing

(01:27:34):
to do with it. And this is another part of
like the complexity here, and we're talking about, like you know,
if you're trying to get like a fair assessment of
Sulimani's role visa the isis Um, you have to account
the fact that he formed these militias which were a
part of defeating Isis. You also have to take into
account that a big part of y Isis gate a
foothold in Iraq is because the Shia Melissa militias, particularly

(01:27:56):
in places like Mosul, brutally suppressed and executed Sunni Um,
based in a large part on like long standing local
different like like arguments and hatreds between Sunni and Shia.
But like Iran then supported those guys by giving them
weapons so they were able to carry out these blood debts,
and that provided fuel for the Sunni uprising. Uh that

(01:28:17):
like Isis really represented in Iraqs that then some of
these like these Sunnies could get guns and kil Shehia's
and it's like and a lot of what I saw
when I was over in Mosele, was people complaining about
these the Iran back militias and like the violence they
were carrying out against Sunnis again in response for a
lot of violence that like Sunnis who had supported Iraq
had carried out, and like this is just gonna cause

(01:28:38):
another cycle of violence between Sunni and Shia and Mosel.
And it's like it's like fuck this ship, Like this
is all very messy. Um now in those yeah, um.
In these documents, Iranian officers speculated that much of the
propaganda campaign to turn Suleimani from a secretive spy chief
into a public hero had to do with his hopes

(01:28:58):
of a future campaign to be president of Iran. And
this is one angle you're going to hear about Sulimani
a lot. That he was being groomed or at least
grooming himself to become the next president of Iran. This
is possible, but I think some other theories might also
be Possibly, maybe he would take on the next supreme leadership.
That's yeah, I think that's really possible. Like what there's

(01:29:20):
the two real possibilities is that a he was pushing,
he was being groomed and sort of like pushing himself
to either be the president or the next supreme leader
of Iran. Totally possible. He had the kind of reputation
where that could have happened. I think the other possibility
is that the Iranian government and Sulimani himself were preparing
for him to be killed by the United States and

(01:29:41):
wanted him to be a potent symbol when it happened,
that they were assuming it was going to happen, and
that he was trying to provoke that assassiny. I think
it's possible. I think, Wow, you just blew my mind.
I don't know. I mean, obviously I don't know, but
but I think both are possible. Starting in two thousand

(01:30:02):
thirteen with that New Yorker article, Cosum Suleimani's most frequent
public appearances were at funerals for deceased Goods Force soldiers.
For years, Cosum made a point of meeting with the
families of martyrs, and here's an excerpt from one part
of the article talking about his visit to the funeral
of a comrade who died fighting in Syria. Quote. He
has a fierce attachment to martyred soldiers and often visits
their families. In a recent interview with Iranian media, he said,

(01:30:25):
when I see the children of the martyrs, I want
to smell their scent and I lose myself. I think
that's something that probably made more sense in the original
Farsi than it does translated into English. Um. As the
funeral continued, he and other mourners bent forward to prey,
pressing their foreheads onto the carpet. One of the rarest
people who brought the revolution in the whole world to
you is gone there as a panihan, the m mom

(01:30:45):
told the mourners. Suleimani cradled his head in his palm
and began to weep. So In public appearances number one,
Suleimani is constantly at the funerals of martyrs, constantly honoring
these soldiers who have died in his command. Um. And
he's very humble about his own his story, even mocking
his short stature by describing himself as the smallest soldier.
He's infamous for refusing to let audience members kiss his

(01:31:07):
hand at public appearances. Um, But online he was a
lot less humble and he can't be having a random
kiss your hand. Maybe there's a lot of random kissing.
Uh in that part of the that part of the world. True,
but cheek to cheek, he keeps like, keep it like
cheek to cheek, keep it like practice at this. Don't

(01:31:28):
kiss my hands now. Uh So, So he's he's he's
trying to be humble like in person and at these events,
and that's clearly a big part of his image. But
he also has a big online presence, and before it
was shut down in two thousand nineteen, his official Instagram
had more than eight hundred thousand followers. Um, pretty good Graham.
Now it's part. Pretty good to Iran, Pretty good Graham

(01:31:52):
for it's part. The government of Iran devoted significant resources
to burnishing a cult of personality around Sulimani. The Supreme
Leader of Iran referred to Kastam sula on a preassassination
as a living martyr of the revolution. Now martyrdom became
an increasing theme in later public appearances of Suleimani. In
two thousand and fourteen, Defa pressed at i R, which
is a website popular among internal Iranian security insiders, published

(01:32:16):
the text of a speech Sulimani and made back in
two thousand seven. They republished in praising the martyrs of
the Iran Iraq War, and I'm gonna read it from
a right up in the Middle East Media Research Institute here.
Sulimani stressed, while praising martyrdom that he himself yearned to
gain the exalted status of a martyr, and added that
jihada is a supreme value in war that allows Iranian
fighters to compensate for their technological inferiority and lack of

(01:32:38):
operational readiness and to defeat the enemy. He emphasized that
absolute obedience to the regime of the rule of the
jurisprudence was also a decisive factor in war. In light
of the prestige earned by the martyrs, he said, I
pray to God from my own end to be martyrdom
as well, and that he will not deny me this
mighty blessing granted to outstanding individuals. So I think there's

(01:33:01):
an an argument that maybe and that because like one
of the things that you know, the the U S
will argue provoked our assassination of Sulimani. Um is the
fact that a few days before uh that that like us,
that whatever, that that Iranian backed militia in Iraq, um
like the same one that committed one of the massacres

(01:33:23):
Uh during the fighting against ISIS fired missiles at a
US Iraqi joint base and killed an American contractor. And
that was like, that's sort of like part of what
the US used to justify this, like killing Sulimani. Um,
And I part of me wonders, like it seems clear
as being set up for something. It was either politics

(01:33:43):
or because they wanted this guy to be famous and beloved,
um and well known, and they wanted to provoke the
U S to doing something dumb um to take him
out because then he's a martyr and then you can
use him to galvanize resistance to the United States, which
is a big part of Iran's foreign policies, to gall
an eze resistance to the United States. And right now,

(01:34:04):
Kasam Sulimani has become a symbol of resistance to the
United States two millions of Shiites across the Middle East.
His picture hangs over streets on banners from Beirut to
Baghdad right now. Um, so I don't know, I don't
know what the actual cases. Um. It's also he's like
his funeral has been used by the government to kind

(01:34:24):
of try to unify people in the wake of there's
just a bunch of massive protests in Iran and the
Koods force, you know, under the command of Sulimani, had
like something a fifteen hundred anti government protesters killed UM
during like this uprising. UM, And now I think they're
kind of using his assassination and like this aggression by

(01:34:44):
the United States the attempt at least is too kind
of pull the country back together. UM. It's uh fucking
um hard to say what the actual plan was, or
if there was a plan, or if I'm breeding too
much into this. He's a spy commander, chief guy. So
part of me is like, you know, maybe there was

(01:35:06):
a deep plan here. Maybe he just wanted to be
supreme leader or president and uh, he never thought that
we would do something this dumb. Either way, I'm just
seeing now that the president is going to address the
country later tonight, so that's probably not going to be good.
I hope it's him saying he is tapping out, because

(01:35:29):
God damn, I don't think that is what's happening. God, Well,
here's hoping for the best. UM. Pray for the people
of Iran. Pay for pray for the people of Iraq. Uh,
pray for the people in the Middle East who will
suffer because of what is to come thanks to the

(01:35:51):
lack of adults in the room. Pray for Yeah, the
lack of adults in the room. Well, h well, I
would say more, but I have I'm a bit of
like a in a bit shock in a bit, I'm

(01:36:12):
in a bit shock over everything that's kind of slowly
pouring out in the news. And um, I need to go,
uh talk to my Iranian family members and make sure
everyone's good to go, because that's all I have is
a telegram app to make sure they're okay, because it's
it's that's the way it goes sometimes when your entire

(01:36:34):
family lives in Iran and you have no sense of
communication and this is the darkest fucking times and we
can only um pray for this to end soon and
for no more people to die. Yeah. Well, the US
just banned all civilian flights over the Gulf regions, so
that's not Jesus yea interesting yep. Yeah, I mean everyone

(01:37:00):
needs to tone it down. That's just my that is
my final thought is to down yeah, yep, which is
It's well, I feel like now there's a lot of
people are gonna get stuck in Iran, like American nationalists,
because you have to go over the Gulf, right. Yeah.

(01:37:24):
And there's a bunch of journalists there who were there
from the United States to like report on the funerals
and stuff, which I mean, on one end, assuming they
don't get taken into custody by the security forces. Uh.
It's kind of a sweet position to be in as
a journalist if you're the only people on the ground
when something like this happens. Um, but I think it's

(01:37:47):
I think it's it's going to be pretty horrific all around. Yeah. Well, um,
if you're listening, and if you're in any of those places, um,
you're in our thoughts and just stay safe. That's all
you can do. Yep. I wish this could be more uplifting,

(01:38:12):
but I don't know. Mm hmm, yeah, I mean yeah.
The big question is this going to be a series
of terrible air strikes and missile strikes on Iran or
is Donald Trump going to actually send in ground troops.
Either way, probably a bad idea. Yes, yep, yes, this

(01:38:40):
is not this. This not good. This not good, And
those are my final thoughts. This not good m back
to you, Robert, What if I was this the worst?
This not good? So you can find us on Twitter

(01:39:02):
and Instagram at Bastard spot. You can find us on
the Internet behind the bastards dot Com. Uh. Keep the
people of a Rock in Iran and Syria, Lebanon, Yemen
all in your hearts. Uh. And I hope that the

(01:39:23):
fewest possible number of people die and what's about to happen.
There's really nothing else to say. Yeah, we also fuck
David Froum. Yeah, because he's he's tweeting about all of
this ship right now and he should not be shut
the funk up about the Middle East, David truly. Um okay,

(01:39:45):
Well the episodes over, thank god.

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